The Wedding Album ~ Your first family heirloom…

Once you wedding day has come and gone it is time to figure out what to do with those wonderful pictures… how you will remember this special time in your lives. Some choose to scrapbook the photos, some place them inside an album they’ve obtained on their own, canvas prints, or perhaps just a memory box… One of the BEST ways to remember your day and showcase all the lovely photos you have received is with a custom wedding album.

When I first began offering my clients wedding albums the current trend was big bulky leather albums that cost a small fortune for one, but also only held a limited number of photos. The photos were either mounted to the pages or slipped into a sleeve that held them in place. Not my cup of tea whatsoever. It was then that I fell in love with ‘Magazine Style’ albums. I wanted to make my albums affordable, classic, timeless, high quality and modern. Something you could pass down throughout the generations that didn’t look dated and dingy from wear and tear.

Ardent albums are still magazine style even today. This means the photos are not mounted to the pages but rather printed ON the pages. Album pages are made of a thick paper and coated with UV coating which will protect them from signs of aging. It’s cover is made of a hard laminate which will feature photos from the wedding both front and back. Your name as well as the studio name will adorn the spine for easy location if you choose to put it in your bookshelf. One of the loveliest things about an Ardent Album is the fact that the pages are ‘hinged’ When you open a book there is always a divot in the middle of the spine… this makes it difficult to see pictures that may be close to the center and nearly impossible to have a photo cover more than one page… it limits you creatively if you will. Ardent Albums lay completely flat when open which allows me to span an amazing photo over two full pages. This is very impressive in the final product.

Besides the high quality craftsmanship and unique features of our albums there is so much that goes into the design process. Most photographers utilize templates for album creation. There are a number of layouts that you just digitally ‘pop’ photos into. Backgrounds are usually taken from stock photography sites. Template albums by their very nature will look the same from client to client. I CUSTOM DESIGN EVERY ALBUM… From the colors I use, background photos, borders, text of your vows… everything is from your wedding and designed to be completely unique to your day, your style. I layout the pages based upon what will look amazing with the photos you’ve marked as your must haves, NOT based on how many photos my template for that page will hold.

Here is an example of an album I just created for a client. The layouts for the pages can be found here. I’m also including with this post pictures of the finished product. An album is included with certain packages & it can also be added on to your coverage. Album investment starts at $300.00 and will vary depending on how many photos you would like to see included.